I have to ask why there are still so many old cars still out on the roads, because they were built to last, they might not be as safe as a new car but driven to conditions & an alert driver can avoid most accidents, i have been involved in a couple of accidents in old cars, both caused by someone running a red light or stop sign, yes my cars were totaled but both times i was injury free, how many people these days can afford to go out and buy a new car without getting themselves into a mountain of debt that is almost a third or half the cost of buying a cheap home in the country, yes you can still buy homes out here in the country where i live for under $150k I know that if i had enough money to go out & buy a new car i would be spending it on buying a house before wasting it on buying a new car that looses almost 50% of its value after only 5 years. https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw...

Well, if we push out all cars before 2002 I need to get myself some new shoes....
My 1999 Delica with airbags will be gone
My 2000 BMW 528i ...Gone despite 6 airbags abs, sct,etc
My 2001 Mercedes 320e..also gone 6 airbags...gone
My son's BMW....never to be seen again....
Lets not talk about the Patrol I fell in love with.....

The ANCAP mob are living in fairy land!! Car Manufacturers & their Dealer/Spares network are very much involved in the WHY of the car fleet being so old!! Think about it... at the most basic level, the reasons people are still driving older cars include many things, but prime reasons include things like: the owners just can't afford a new car; their old car is percieved as being more robust & reliable; the older cars just don't have all the electronic fripperies; the older car will do things that newer cars won't; or that adding more dents or bush pin-stripes to the older car won't be as upsetting as doing the same to a new car!!

There are probably a heap more too, but that 'can't afford' thing is probably the biggest one in there, with the 'percieved as being more robust & reliable' running a close second!! And that opinion is reinforced every time we see an apparently undamaged 'new car' sitting on a tray top being trucked off to replace something!!

How many here have been caught by some relatively cheap electronic circuit board or sensor failing in such a way that the only solution was to replace it?! And THAT means your car doesn't go while the dealer orders the part from outer Mongolia or wherever, and then once it finally arrives & gets plugged in, they discover it needs something else replaced too!! Who is gonna pay out so much of their hard earned for a car when such a minor little thing can stop it for a couple of weeks AND the dealer can't find the problem and fix it NOW? And that goes doubly so when the car you get to fork out so much on is something you might want to use to take your family out into the remote bush, and everyone hears or tells stories about that bloke who hadta pay thousands of $$$ to get his brand new 4by trailered out because he drove thru a puddle and a bloody sensor on the trans failed so the damned thing everything shut down!!

No-one wants to risk that, and no matter how much the car manufacturers might insist that their cars are more reliable now & that the cost increase that happens pretty much every year is only covering the cost of the greater technology they put into their products;
whilever there is the perception that a 20cent part can stop your car DEAD for a few weeks & your dealer can charge maybe $1000 or more and STILL not fix it the first time every time;
whilever all that technology that gets added is seen as being needlessly complex and removing 'something' from the driving experience;
whilever affording one of these fancy new cars for most involves borrowing maybe more than a years wages or salary;
whilever these sexy little cheap runarounds don't come anywhere near being tough enough or up for carrying the Aussie family into the bush AND HOME AGAIN safely EVERY TIME....

Then people are going to want to hang on to the car that the average owner feels comfortable owning, running, maybe even fixing every now & then!! I'm not willingly parting with my old school no-electronics TD42 diesel GQ Patrol cos it goes everywhere I want it to; it'll drag 3 or 4 Toyotas along behind it while it does & get us all safely home regardless; there's nothing electronic on it that can stop it running in such a way that I can't get it going again in the bush and then drive 1000km to get out with no power at all (been there, done that!); and it's as tough as nails & as steadfastly reliable as the rocks underlying Aust have been for a million years or two!! What's not to like?!? And what manufacturer these days makes anything that can do the same?!? And even if they did, I bet it'd hafta cost more than 1/4 of my annual income and probably more than that to service too!!

An Ex-Service person is someone who thought enough about their country & how great it is, how lucky we are to live here, to write a blank cheque made out to 'The People and Commonwealth of Australia' for the value of 'Up to & including my Life!'

i'm with you lot, i would much rather take my 30 year old hilux (no ABS, no TC, no ESC, no airbags) into the unknown knowing i can likely drive it home on a broken cylinder, cracked head or without a clutch, or at least have some kind of sense of how to pull an axle or to fix it to limp home.

Old cars become famous for reliability.

I also have a young family - being able to spend money on a new car while we have a mortgage would be a bloody luxury, and i can tell you now there are things i would be pouring that money into LONG before buying a box full of computer chips (another 10k off the house loan would be nice!) hence the reason i bought my car in the first place, it was cheap, i can work on it, and limited things to go wrong!

I find it extremely naive of ANCAP to even suggest this, given the economic state, do they have their head in the sand or somewhere else.......and the suggestion of giving up your new car to your 17 year old P plater is probably the most stupid thing i have heard - teaching them value of belongings and to look after things is one of the greatest lessons those early shitboxes achieve, i still remember cleaning my subaru brumby like it was my pride and joy, even though it cost me $500, i sold it 5 years later for $500 cos i looked after it. I learned lots of lessons about looking after my things then.

Also love how they have listed dates for the worst cars are actually between 1998 and 2002, but do not list the age of drivers or any other details that would highlight further what other issues have contributed to the statistics. It could be that P platers are more likely buying 1998-2002 cars now as the price allows and all we are seeing is the shift in safety standards / construction materials cause an increase in vehicle deaths. Or it could be that old people are driving these cars and the accidents are from them being complacent.
Would be very interesting to see the data in full.

The other thing to consider, is a sedan with a 5 star rating and plastic bumper no matter how new it is, is not going to have the same rating when you have a head on with a landrover defender with a big steel bar. the ratings themselves are a farce and is so misleading its stupid.

Look at the ANCAP rating of a 105 series cruiser (taken from 2002) vs the ancap rating of a toyota Camry (taken 2013).
Cruiser has a safety rating of 4 stars and a total of 24.9 out of 37.
The camry has a rating of 5 stars and a rating of 36.27 out of 37.
ANCAP would look at that and tell you by comparison the camry is the safer car. and it is, if you are looking for things like setbelt reminders and factory ESC. BUT and this is a BIG BUT

I can tell you now if the cruiser with a steel bar has a head on with a camry who is going to be likely walking away from the crash!!! and it has nothing to do with the camry having a few extra seat belt reminders.